It’s the third year in succession for The Mill atop the Facilities 50. The visual effects giant is a fast growing global concern with sizable facilities in London, LA and New York, as well as a more modest foray into Asia with a ‘mini Mill’ in Singapore, attached to agency BBH Singapore. The company recently relocated to larger offices in LA to accommodate demand for its services there.

The Mill is the flag bearer for the larger vfx houses that have grown from purely focusing on post production to evolving into creative partners to their clients. It now regularly works as a digital agency, creating and fulfilling concepts for its clients to expand TV campaigns across digital platforms.

“The reality is we’re increasingly being treated as creative partners. That’s always been the case but now it’s more explicit,” says md Darren O’Kelly. “Within visual effects, things continually become ever more complex, interesting and challenging so you’re much more involved from start to finish.”

“The Mill team works with the agency and production company as ‘creative technologists’ and contribute as partners. We look at what assets are being built for the TV campaign – car parts, animation cycles, etc – and work with the director to express the creative outside of the 30-second or 60-second TV spot. It’s about how you can use innovative platforms and technology to push the boundaries.”

The company has seen a notable jump in its turnover in the last year, which O’Kelly attributes to moves made in the last few years: “We gained market share in the much tighter years of recession and some of the seeds of that have been starting to bear fruit. We’ve also been growing our core capabilities – we didn’t really do digital production and gaming three years ago.”
O’Kelly concedes it’s still “tough out there” and “gets no less challenging” but he says, “We tough it out and fight hard for work. It’s about doing great work. If you continue to do that, everything looks after itself.”

“I’m enormously proud of what we’ve achieved creatively this year,” says MPC Md Mark Benson. “First and foremost you need great clients. Then it’s about meeting very challenging deadlines and making it work financially.” In common with many of the large British vfx houses, MPC has a substantial presence abroad – in the US, Canada and India. It has also witnessed a gradual shifting of its role of late: “We’ve seen an increase in clients asking us to look at solutions to provide innovative ways to distribute content across different platforms - whether that’s tablets and mobile phones or projections across shop fronts in London and New York,” says Benson.

“Our creative projects over the last year have never been better,” believes MPC md Mark Benson. “The minute you compromise on quality you lose your edge.” He says, over the last year, “There’s been a desire for more photo-real character animation and more awareness of the opportunities film-style vfx provide in the advertising space”. Benson points to Cadbury’s Spots V Strips as a good example.

He says about post: “The model is undoubtedly evolving – at the moment, it incorporates traditional post and partnership post, and occasionally production as well. There’s not been a seismic change but there’s undoubtedly been a change.”

It’s been a busy 12 months for The Farm, with joint-md Nicky Sargent relocating temporarily to LA to set up The Farm LA – staffed by about 20 people – after taking over LA-based Edit Gods and kitting up a full-service post offer to support The X Factor in the US. It is also posting The MTV Awards over there. “We’re probably the only example of a full-service TV-focused post house in LA,” says Sargent. Back in the UK, The Farm won the contract to run the BBC’s post facilities at MediaCityUK, which Sargent is now getting up and running.

Envy was true to form this year in opening yet another new facility - an offline editing house a few doors down from its Rathbone Street HQ. It now has a total of 75 offlines that feed work into its extensive finishing facilities. Next on the cards is a third Baselight grading suite and, says md Dave Cadle, “If the floor above us [in Rathbone Street] came free, we’d take it. We’re not planning to expand beyond London – it’s what we know.”

Global post house Prime Focus, which has offices in London, India, the US and Canada, has expanded its services in the UK over 2010/11 by launching a TV drama production wing, an animation company and huge film-focused 2d-to-3d conversion facilities, which are currently turning Episode 1 of Star Wars 3d. “The drama production wing is a client, but it’s an inhouse client,” says Prime Focus md UK, Simon Briggs. “It reinforces our credentials from a drama point of view and fully demonstrates we understand the drama workflow. The animation side – Amazing Spectacles – is focused on the commercials business. It’s for certain jobs that require an integrated solution where we work directly for the agency and offer our own roster of directors who creatively project manage the production.”

“Molinare has used 2011 as an opportunity to reinvent and rejuvenate itself. Our new brand encompasses greater attention to client services, with a focus on creative talent to complement the capital expenditure,” believes COO Scott Holmgren. “We plan to grow through the continued development of certain branches of our business, including vfx, transmission and restoration, which all have growth potential.”

Deluxe 142 was formed in November 2010 following the purchase of Ascent Media’s global Creative Services and Media Services businesses by Deluxe. It means Deluxe now owns what was Ascent 142 and Rushes in the UK as well as US-based facilities Company 3, Encore Hollywood and Level 3 Post. Last month Deluxe merged Deluxe 142’s digital intermediary services with Company 3, resulting in Company 3 taking over Deluxe 142’s film grading services. Deluxe 142 echoes the UK’s large vfx houses in saying relationships with clients have been “moving away from client/supplier to a more unified partner style arrangement” over the last year.

A sister company to MPC, Technicolor Creative Services focuses on the film and broadcast sectors, offering a full service of post facilities. Over the last year, the company, which has only been based in Soho since 2008, when it relocated from West Drayton, says, “We’ve seen growth in titles design, opticals and digital acquisition, and have built a tapeless pipeline for film dailies. We now plan to grow through market diversification, expansion and new services.”